Kakahead

I love the farmers’ market.  The whole experience is truly spiritual, in my professional opinion.  All the growers bring their goodies, in all kinds of weather, so we can come and get the best fresh produce money can buy.  You know how people sometimes get cranky at the grocery store?  Whether they’re giving the cashier a hard time about a price they don’t like, or yelling at their kids, there can be discord at the store at various times.

 Never, never have I seen anything like that at the market.

 Last Saturday, I was in charge of our grandson Ollie, after Nini (pronounced “Neenee”) fed him breakfast and ran off to work.  His Dad went on a hunting trip, and his Mom was entertaining a friend who was home from overseas.  So, we had the privilege of watching our wonderful young man over the weekend.  On the agenda:  a trip to the market to buy some fruit.

 We get plenty of veggies in our garden, so no need to buy any of those right now.  But we don’t have any plums, pears, or apples growing around the place, so off to the market I go each weekend.  I sometimes get a bit over zealous with the grabbing of the fruit.  For example, I found it necessary to buy ½ peck of plums.  That’s a lot of plums!!  And of course I had to get almost as many pears.  Both of those are going out of season soon you know.  And last but not least, I had to get some more apples.  One can never have too many apples… right??

 Once we parked the car, we got out and noticed the REALLY BIG BACKHOE moving REALLY BIG THINGS across the road from the farmers’ market.  Seemed like they were doing some kind of storm drain work, and we arrived just in time to see the back hoe moving a gigantic section of concrete drain.  Pretty cool stuff for such a  young man to watch! 

 Then off we went to get the goodies.  When we came upon the booth with the plums, Ollie mentioned that he likes those.  “You want one now?” I asked.  “I do!” he replied without hesitation.  As we continued on, one of the kind ladies at another booth caught up to me with a big hunk of paper towel.  “You’re gonna need this soon!” she said, smiling.  I smiled back and thanked her, then off we went to finish shopping. 

 On our way out, we walked to the edge of the parking lot for another glimpse of the REALLY BIG BACKHOE.   Our dear friend Kathleen caught up to us just as we were getting into the car.

 “Hi Ken!!  What are you doing here??” she asked.  Being the eternal smarty pants, I quipped, “I was trying to go fishing.  I went all up and down those aisles but no fish anywhere.”   Many folks are surprised that although I have a pretty prolific garden I still go to the farmers’ market.  One extra bonus of going to market, though, is I almost always run into someone who’s near and dear to my heart.  Plus, Kathleen had heard me and my beautiful girlfriend brag about Ollie but now she finally got to meet him.

 Fast forward several days… the pears are almost all eaten.  Some went home with our son the other day so that helped.  My lovely girlfriend put out a fruit bowl with assorted market goodies for her women’s meeting, so that got rid of some of the plums.  However, some of the plums were becoming compost, and some of the pears and apples were fast on the way to not-so-yummy land.   Every time I opened the fruit drawer to get something for work, all kinds of thoughts raced through my noggin.  Most of these were predicated with the question, “WHAT THE HECK ARE WE GONNA DO WITH ALL THIS FRUIT???”

 Then came Wednesday.  My lovely bride was exhausted from a long work day and some physical therapy to help her heel problems.  I was in charge of dinner.  I found a nice salmon filet on sale at Meijer.  Cooked that up with some beets and beet greens, nuked a couple potatoes, and voila!!  Dinner is served.  OK… how about some dessert??  What to make… that is the question.  Then it came to me in a flash, and I jumped up on top of the kitchen counter, clanged some Revere Ware together, and shouted “EUREKA!!” at the top of my lungs. 

 Or not.

 But I did have a flash of inspiration for something I thought might be yummy:  fruit sauce.  You know, like apple sauce, but with more than just apples.  I hunted down all the not so wonderful fruit:  apples, plums, and pears.  Then I chopped them up whole, skins and all (minus cores and pits of course) and threw them in a 2 ½ quart Revere Ware pan.  Next, I poured about a cup or so of apple juice in the pan for a sweet but moist head start for boiling.  Couple dashes of cinnamon and the last of a bag of brown sugar just to sweeten it a bit more.  There was only about one tablespoon of sugar left in the bag, maybe less (probably could have omitted the sugar, but what the heck).  Oh, and for an added nutritional wallop, I tossed about a half handful each of walnut halves and shaved almonds in there.

 I brought all this to a boil, stirred them around a bit with one of  our many wooden spoons.  After the fruit was nice and soft, into the food processor it went.  Now, many of you have heard me rant that I’m old school in many ways.  A dinosaur even.  And I like it already!   Although I bought my lovely girlfriend a nice Kitchenaid food processor a couple Santa times ago, I still turn to my favorite food processor every time.   It’s the one my father-in-law gave us for a wedding present 38 years ago.  Made in the USA, sold by Montgomery Ward where he worked at the time.  Here it is next to my finished product, which turned out nice and smooth but was more like fruit soup than fruit sauce.    Click on the picture for a larger view.

HI-Tech Food Processor from 1973

 That blender has helped me make many a pumpkin puree for pies over the years.  Works great for iced coffee smoothies in the summer too.  The crazy thing works and even (almost) looks like brand new.  And of course, every time I use it, I have fond memories of Grampa Hilliard who’s probably reading this down in Jasper, Florida. 

 So the fruit became soup instead of compost.  Well, more like pudding than soup I guess.  Pretty darn tasty though… and while it was still warm I plopped some in a couple bowls and accidentally dropped some Breyer’s Fat Free Vanilla Ice Cream on top of it.  Oh my goodness it was cosmic!! 

 With winter on the way, I’ll be staying home tomorrow instead of the usual trek to the market.  Gotta get the swiss chard and some other veggies out before the snow moves in!!  I’d like to be at least a little prepared and stock our pantry (or, more accurately, the freezer) before the snows come. 

 Well, I tried to find a suitable video for this Happy Friday and found this gem featuring my favorite chefs.  Please forgive the fact that it’s broken into two parts… but quite often that’s the “price” of free stuff these days. 
 
Part 1 -

 
Part 2 -